For those of you who do not know, the Warlock 4t7 bonus is called Spirits of the Damned, and grants 300 spirit for 10 seconds following a lifetap.

The gain on the buff, after Kings, is about 129 spellpower if you have Demonic Aegis. Thus, the value of the buff becomes:

129 spellpower * % uptime

which becomes:

(129 spellpower * 10 * number of lifetaps)/length of fight

I believe a key point here is that you never want to lifetap for the sake of the buff, if you don't need the mana. You still want to end at 0 mana, and a 129 spellpower gain for 5 casts does not offset the lost global CD.

A second key point is that there are some Illidan type fights which allow you to refill your mana bar during downtime, thus effectively nullifying the value of the bonus. Sapphiron, Heigan, Noth, 4H, and a few others have this property to some degree. The tank and spank (for us) fights clearly do not.

A third key point is that 2t7 clearly has some value, in all situations, so I will assume it is already being used.

For those of you who have all the Valorous pieces, I think the question becomes moot. You use Valorous gloves, legs, and shoulders, which are all best in slot or close to it, and you pick 1 of the 2 remaining slots and fill your bonus.

For those of you using Heroes' pieces, the question becomes: Should I use 1-2 ilvl 200 Heroes pieces (particularly the awful chest) over ilvl 213 or 226 pieces that are individually and collectively superior and forego the 4t7 buff?

Looking for people's thoughts on how to better quantify the bonus. There are also some intricate details, as well. For example, added haste in gear increases your mana throughput, causing you to lifetap more, increasing your buff uptime, so haste might be worth slightly more than it was otherwise. Similarly, added spirit causes you to lifetap less, so spirit might be slightly devalued.

Well, I just dont see why dont get it. I dont know your spec but i really think there isnt any head better than t7 one if you are affliction specced. Maybe getting that 4 piece with head/shoulder/glove/legs gonna be the best. I still prefer to get Malygos legs (will help solving my hit problem) and keeping the chest, or maybe if the bonus really dont worthy it having 3 pieces t7 and a better chest

Edit: Some calculations!

Considering this calculations in the Dots and You! Post compairing the following items:

Chests:

Gown of SpellWeaver:

110 spell power = 105.7
72 hit = 78.2
50 crit = 18.2
19 spell dmg = 18.25
Estimated DPS= 220.35

Heigan's Putrid Vestiments:

99 spell power = 95.139 dps
51 hit = 55.37
49 haste = 20.41
2x 19 Spell Dmg Gems (38 spell power) = 36.51
Estimated DPS = 207.429 dps


Valorous Plagueheart Robe

99 spell dmg = 95.139
51 hit = 55.37
66 spirit = 19.08
19 spell dmg = 18.25
9dmg 8 hit = 17.45
6 spirit (bonus) = 1.72
Estimated DPS = 207 dps


Heads:

Not including meta gems, because gonna be the same for all heads

Hood of Rationality

120 spell power = 115.32
50crit = 18.2
81 spirit = 23.32
19 spell dmg = 18.25
Estimated DPS = 175.09

Valorous Plagueheart Circlet

99 spell power = 95.139
56 haste = 22.9
50 spirit = 14.4
9 spell dmg 8 hit = 17.45
8 haste = 3.2
Estimated DPS = 153.089


Conclusions:

300 spirit = 86.4 dps

So chest is 13 dps loss, if you trade it to get the bonus you gonna have to have an uptime of 13.48% of the buff to worth having it. That in a battle of 5 minutes is 40.456 seconds so ~= 4 life taps on a 5 minutes fight.

Head is 22 dps loss, if you trade it to get the bonus you have to have an uptime of 25.46% of the buff to worth having it. That ina battle of 5 minutes is 76.389s so ~= 8 life taps

Well that table can be wrong, as my calculations. So if anyone knows anything lets discuss and see what is better for us

This might be as good as a place to discuss it than ever so... I'm mainly thinking in the same way as you: What piece is the best one to replace?
I walked in to my first 25-man last Sunday and I had no idea what stuff dropped other than the Valorous' parts so I just rolled on stuff that was better than mine. I ended up with [Leggings of Atrophy] which at least seems to be on par with T7. Should I remove it as fast as I can or what? Otherwise I've been checking out [Gothik's Cowl] as 5th piece.

Some preliminary estimations in another thread came to the conclusion that, because lifetap scales off of spirit, the bonus proc is better used on another lifetap than on a spell, if you're not overtapping. While obviously the best use of it is 9 seconds of damage and one lifetap, the sheer scaling of the lifetap may be such that chain-lifetapping is a better use of the proc than 10 seconds of damage without a lifetap.

In movement situations it's a bit harder to tell what should be going. I would guess that the optimal play would be to tap at the end of the movement for the buff for 'free' regardless of whether you need the mana or not.

Best way to use the 4-set bonus:

Get to somewhat low mana.
Lifetap
Cast Spells
When the buff gets down to 1 second, Lifetap again
Cast Spells

If executed perfectly, you'd get ~19 seconds of the buff up, along with a lifetap that gets the extra ~1k mana.

I don't think that makes much sense. If you're chain tapping, more often than not the boss is unattackable anyway. I don't see any difference in chain tapping and waiting for 3 seconds as opposed to chain tapping and waiting for 2 seconds.

For movement, I suppose there might be some truth in that, but as destro you always retain the option to apply corruption during movement, since you don't (well I don't) use it in a standing still rotation.

Maybe we could also use this thread to discuss the best item setup for us to use for each individual spec as well.

IMO Gothik's Cowl is no better than our T7 Helm and inferior to the [Hood of Rationality] and basically a sidegrade from a couple other naxx helms.

Leave this one to the mages.

Sorry, I was being a bit unclear in what I meant. I was saying that I could reasonably believe that using the proc for a single cast of lifetap being better than 10 seconds of DPS spells, so even having nothing better to use it on than chain-tapping while moving is actually a good use. The optimal use of the bonus in a movement fight is to replace *all* filler during movement with lifetap rather than tapping as little as you need, because while the extra mana is wasted the proc uptime is not coming at the cost of damage done.

edited because ellipses are bad aparently.


Anyways, Destruction the question was would running Leggings of Mortal Arrogance better for the space over the teir 7.5 leggings. Due to the higher raw damage, I was thinking that for awhile, I have now since accepted with regard to lifetap-per-fight-gain post, that maybe the Helm, is simply the best space for the non-tier item now.. However, I am still wondering if there are any better number values for destruction builds, rather than affliction values. As affliction is simply not any fun to play.

I have been going back and forth over this as well. Raid buffed my first LT goes off for about 4.4k mana and my second goes off for about 5.6k mana. 10k mana is nice, but considering I drop 40% or so in health in 1.22s seconds, that can send my healers into a tizzy.

On the other hand, everytime I tap I am losing DPS by not SB'ing (unless moving of course). Although a Tap does grant you the 120ish SP for 10 seconds, I think tapping for that sake is not a good idea. ie: Staying around 90% health to maximize the buff up time.

I am more inclined to believe the best use for the SPI buff is for the second Tap meaning you don't have to tap as often, meaning you are doing more DPS in the long run.

The math part would basically ask the question: is 1.2k more mana > 120 sp for 8.5s?

Considering my avg SB is 7.9k on PW fight, 1.2k mana means 4 more bolts? Don't see how 120sp for 8.5s is going to eclipse being able to cast 4 more SB's before having to tap again.